My fingers weave a rug for my ancestors; The ones who stole scraps from factory floors In clock-faced brick mills in treeless towns. Who heard meadow grasses whispering in golden snippets Snatched up the blue-green lilt of bracken tracks in dusken hills And, feeling the warmth of old stone in ochre swatches, Wove them all in, so the children warmed their feet And remembered that once they ran free. My fingers weave a rug for my sisters; Women who sing with buzzards and drum to the North. Who travel out on dog sleds to ice floes where worlds end To gather songs of snow and blood and bone, and Carry them back, and gather us in, and sing them for us By a hearth so warm and bright that the ice starts to thaw And wilder melodies flow back in amidst the Meltwater; the tears of homecoming. My fingers weave a rug for my sisters and brothers; Those who step into the flames, and use the Kindling of their guilt to spark the flame of their innocence. Who torch their shame on a bonfire of wild abandon So fierce, that the inferno of expansion burns All their fear away, so only love remains. I weave them Waves of Bliss to remind them, Reflecting their infinite waves. My fingers shred the shirts my brothers wore Through their night sweats, and slice up the Cheap cotton of dying lakes and exhausted soils. Untangle acid wools from mountain deserts, And weave them all into a rug so strong, And so soft, that it holds newly birthing worlds While my voice and tender heart sing along To all of our freedom songs. September 2017
Category: Poetry
Dark Wing
So what do you plan to do with this wild and precious life?

I plan to keep listening to the whispering
Of the midnight bird’s fluidly pulsing wings
Undulating form, dark and velvet
I long to surge through that texture
On my stomach, softening into the miracle.
With a swoosh, almost imperceptible, a sound like
Blue moon rising at the edge of the world
Is anything more wonderful to imagine
Beyond grasping earth-bound senses,
Than your flight: shape-shifting sheen?
Thicker than water, loved by air’s gusts and streams
A lover’s dance conceived your infrastructure
Bone and sinew and feather, muscular tribute
The story repeating in every moving moment
Watch your words, for they become worlds!
This diversity of beauty
Cannot but be birthed from true love
Coupling beings playing across dimensions
Like songbirds serenading buds into blossom.
I dance your sweep, your cacophony, your mischief
Your laughter, your freedom soar.
I felt the smudge of your wing once
In a journey beyond space-time
Cutting through fantasy and self-deception
Like plumed razors.
2015